Surfbirds News

The RSPB, working with SEO - its Spanish BirdLife International partner - is fighting the regional government proposal that would permit Catalonian hunters to use the so-called traditional practice of luring songbirds, by playing their songs, to branches covered in glue.

Fieldfare, at risk in the Ebro area on migration © Aurélien Audevard

Once caught, the birds are then 'plucked' like fruit from the trees. Many birds suffer horrific injuries, such as losing legs, before being killed.

Graham Wynne, the RSPB's chief executive, said: 'Millions of our best-loved songbirds - such as thrushes, warblers and flycatchers – pass through Spain each spring and autumn.

'For many years the RSPB has been campaigning against illegal bird killing in southern Europe, especially in both Malta and Cyprus.

The Catalan challenge on European bird protection laws is a serious one, and the RSPB will unite with its partners across the European Union to campaign to ensure that birds are not put under further threat in Catalonia, or elsewhere.'

Hundreds of thousands of song thrushes, and fieldfares, migrating from northern Europe are thought to be at risk and will be killed in the Ebro area (south of Barcelona) beginning next month.

This non-selective type of hunting, which is banned by European law, is worrying conservationists. The RSPB is particularly concerned about how this indiscriminate practice may affect birds that are already declining in Europe, such as the redstart. These relatives of the robin nest in the UK and it is believed the vast majority of UK birds pass through Iberia en route to their African wintering grounds. They have declined across Europe, where most of their world range is concentrated.

At the same time as trying to reintroduce bird trapping using glue, the Catalan government is also trying to legalise a form of net-trap hunting calling 'filat', a technique which traps thirsty birds attracted to small pools of water. The technique is forbidden in Spain.

The use of limesticks is also prevalent in Cyprus, though at substantially reduced rates since the RSPB began working there five years ago.